Blood Will Tell
by machievelli
Summary: Deep in the Cambodian jungle lies a secret, and I am going to find out what it is...
1. Chapter 1

Saigon: 1969

I ordered the local cuisine; I do that where ever I go because I have always found so many wonderful things to eat that way. The serving girl was surprised that I spoke her language. But I have forgotten how many languages I have learned in almost two centuries. I ordered a locally made wine, which also pleased her.

I considered my handler's instructions. I still smile when I think of the term; people have tried to handle me over the many long years, from my bastard of a father to every man who sees an unattached woman ans thinks whore, to those who would technically be my siblings, fathers by Kagan, to Professor Trumain of the Brimstone Society before he died, now Conrad. One day he would die. Only my enemy and I are immortal.

Of course that is not really true; immortal by definition means living forever. Considering how many vampires I have killed, we really aren't that. I work for the Society for only one reason; they send me where there are reports of vampires, and I kill vampires. Having them find my targets means I actually have some free time to sample food, or as the Americans say, smell the roses.

I had that thought when two American MPs walked in. Every since Kennedy died their presence in the country has increased. Thanks to the Tonkin Gulf incident, they have taken the gloves off in more ways than one. One of them pointed toward my table. Someone I had talked to about getting closer to the Cambodian border must have shopped me out to the Americans. If they had, and I had an idea who, it posed a problem. I had no business in Vietnam; I had to cross the border into Cambodia, which was undergoing it's own Communist meltdown with the Khmer Rouge offering ways for the Viet Cong to enter the country. If I, a woman, and probably European wanted to go there, I no doubt was dealing in heroin, or perhaps weapons for the rebels in both nations.

The biggest problem was my race. There aren't many European faces in the country any more; as such I would be easy to spot. The French had been beaten at Dien Bien Phu over a decade before, and most of the remaining Europeans had been liquidating their holdings and moving on since that disaster until the Americans had built up their troops in the country. If they had sent me here even four years ago I would have had only the locals to deal with. Now it's helicopters, the new night vision gear, thousands of American troops, and of course the vampires.

And of course idiots who shop me to the authorities, any authorities.

They came over toward my table, sure they could subdue a woman. After all, I'm only 1.57 meters tall. Like the old song; Five foot two, eyes of blue. If my eyes were blue.

"Identification please." One of them asked in French. For a moment, I considered pretending I didn't speak it. Of course he had probably used all he knew in French from his look. He was more of the 'beat on the problem 'til it goes away' type. I was sure that I didn't answer he'd just throw me on the table, cuff me, and drag me down to the station. Maybe someone there would know whatever language I did speak.

"Perhaps if we used English?" I asked. He looked confused at my accent. I was born in Floresti Romania in the Year of Our Lord 1783. To an American, the closest accents would be Bela Lugosi, or Russian. I was betting he would go for Russian, meaning I was obviously representing an arms merchant, or the Russian government. I could see staff sergeant's stripes dancing in his eyes.

"May I see your identification papers, please." I reached into my purse, and pulled out the Austrian passport. One of only about eighteen I have. He looked at it, but was defeated by simple German. Honestly, even as a Romanian, I know that Republik Osterreich means Eastern Republic, and all you have to do is pronounce Osterreich to work out Austria. But this guy wouldn't have been able to buy a clue if he had a quarter. He handed it to his partner, who wasn't much brighter. "I was born in Romania, but I am a citizen of Austria."

I might as well not have bothered, every one knows that Romania is now in the Warsaw Pact. That means Communist yet again. They shared a look; both now dreaming of promotion.

"We have had some problems lately, could you come down to the station with us please?"

Did I look that stupid? They were hoping to get me down there as happy as a clam right before the Tabasco sauce hits it. I sighed, signaling for the waitress. "Please make that to take away." I told her. "These morons want me to go with them."

"Please, Mademoiselle. Be wary of the Yankee." She hissed.

"I will be fine."

She delivered my meal, but thanks to the Americans, I wasn't allowed to take the wine with me. I picked up the bag, and climbed into their patrol car. They got in. "By the way, who turned me in? Phan?"

"Yeah." Idiot one said. All they needed was another man to be the three stooges.

"Thanks." I set down the bag, then leaned forward, a hand on the outside of their heads, and smacked their heads together. They went down, out for the count. The car had been requisitioned from the local Gendarme, and since they were American, they had disabled the handles by removing them. I leaned to one side, and kicked. The door ripped off it's hinges, slamming into the wall. A pair of local men merely watched me step out. "Don't kill them." I admonished them. "Stupid enemies are a treasure." Hopefully I had saved their lives. But I knew, in this city, that the car would be stripped within the hour.

Dealing with problems.

I waited until Phan had turned on the lights before I caught him by the neck and threw him into the wall. He spun, and I plucked the old Luger from his hand. That took me back. Then I caught by the collar, and slammed him down into his chair. He stared at me in horror as I took the other chair, emptying my dinner out. I went to his cabinet, and brought out a bottle of cognac. He winced as I poured an inch of it, drinking it down as if it were water. Part of my heritage. I opened the to go box, took his own fork and began to eat.

"Rayne! How good to see you." I could hear his heartbeat racing. Again, part of my heritage.

"Phan, I am unhappy with you." I scraped the stew onto the container of rice, stirred it, and began to eat. "You shopped me to the Amis."

"I would never-" I looked up, and he froze like a bird seeing the snake approaching.

"That is one lie. Do not make me get... angry."

"All right, I admit it!" He almost screamed. "They caught me smuggling some whiskey. They told me someone was trying to make a run into Cambodia. I knew you were going that way, but I didn't tell them about the arrangements, so they would have thought you were maybe a friend of the French who still live in that area."

"With an Eastern European accent, of course they would." I said smoothly. Lovely stew. If I had the chance, I would have to go back and get some more. "So what must I do about you?"

He was sweating like a pig. If I were a Flamenco dancer, I could have used his heartbeat for castanets. I saw his eyes dart toward the butcher knife on the table beside him. A quick man could grab it and kill me. I looked down into the container. As I did he snatched, stabbing at me.

I caught his wrist negligently, setting down my food as I looked into his eyes. Humans are always surprised by my strength. Briefly, but surprised. He tried to pull his hand back, but it was caught like a bug in amber. His eyes widened as I caught his elbow, and like a mechanical press, bent his arm until the knife was aimed at his chest. He had time to say one word, "Please!' Before it was rammed into his chest.


	2. With a Little Helpo From My Friends,

With a Little Help from my Friends, sort of

It only took me less than a day to figure out that the local Gendarme, and MPs both Vietnamese and American were watching out for me trying to leave the city. Even if I intended to simply leave the country to fly elsewhere.

Whoever had thought that flying into a country in the midst of a civil war, then to attempt to cross a border that is being used to infiltrate men and material into that country from another country fighting it's own civil war should have had his head examined. When I saw Conrad, I was going to have a long talk with him and a wall. I haven't played handball in years, and he would be perfect as the ball.

As bad as the situation was, this was my best route. I was bound for the far side of Prey Veng Province and even the Cambodian capital was further away. The name means grand of long forest. This was the closest I could come except for The Tân Biên district of Tay Ninh.

I had jokingly suggested they could merely fly me in by seaplane and let me travel up the Mekong, but the man who briefed me, DeWinter, had said that thanks to smuggling, which was has been rampant along Gulf of Thailand for centuries, I might run into either the Cambodian or US Navy and American Coast Guard patrols for that trade. Or have to deal with the Coast Guard 82 footers and Army Swift boats on the river itself. No, when I returned, it would be DeWinter as the hand ball. I'd have to fold him up and tie his limbs down to make him round enough, but right now I was in the mood to do just that.

I shook my head angrily. Fine, you've sent me in here and have gotten me trapped, you damn Brimstone Society fools! Unless, that is, I want to cross the DMZ and fly out of Hanoi! Why don't I just turn myself into the Americans...

I paused for a long moment. Even if I were able to evade their net, they knew where I was headed, the border with Prey Veng. They would put cordons inside of cordons, Air Cav, surveillance aircraft, the first bloody Marine Division if they could pull it off. All to stop me from crossing the border on a mission that was meant to save humanity. But not good enough if they did not sign off on it.

Wait a minute. I picked up the phone, and called Conrad in London. He whined about how early I was calling him, but I flat didn't care. I didn't yell at him, I very rarely raise my voice. I told him what I needed, and told him by god I wanted it within 24 hours. He told me which embassy to go to.

The next evening, I went through my special equipment case. It was listed as being carried by a bonded carrier, (Me) though that was with my German ID, not my Austrian one. I had to hope the two stooges had not really understood the one I had shown them. I packed all but the German passport into a package marked to send back to the Brimstone Society via DHL.

The next morning, I walked down to the I Corps base in town. I went up the the gate guard, carrying my case. "Excuse me. I am told the authorities are looking for me?" I handed him my German passport. He nodded, not looking up, then looked at the passport photo. Only then did he look at me. I could hear his heart race as he drew his sidearm, and I looked at it curiously as he fumbled for the phone. "Alert! The woman is here!"

I stood there as if I were too stupid to understand as half a dozen soldiers in two jeeps roared down to confront me. They surrounded me, and one tried to take my case. I flipped open the ID Conrad had sent to the British Embassy. "That case is registered as being carried by a bonded courier. I cannot allow you to take it." He tried to tug it away, and I swung with him as he pulled, then tripped him so he landed on his back. I was slammed down on the ground with someone grinding his M16's flash protector into my cheek. It wasn't until then that they realized it was cuffed to my wrist.

"I am a bonded Courier of Garantierte Sicherheit Unternehmens, Guaranteed Security Company of Bern Switzerland. No one, not even customs agents are allowed to open this case." I rasped out. "You will take me to your officers, now!"

It took several minutes for them to figure out that the only way to take the case away would be to either to cut the cuff, or my wrist. Either one would have pissed me off. Do you know how long it would take for me to regenerate my hand? I had just about decided to show them exactly what I could do regardless of the consequences when the officer who had sent them showed up, and told the sergeant that had been threatening to blow my head off if I didn't open the case right this effing minute to stand down.

Finally I was handcuffed, and dragged into a jeep. Two men, one ahead of me, the other beside me had me covered. I sat there, a statue of flesh, ignoring them. After a time I was dragged into an interrogation room. I ignored it as they cuffed my free hand to the chair, with the case sitting on a table in front of me. After about two hours, a man in an Army uniform with Intelligence flashes on his collar point and shoulder flash came in. He was a captain, and reading a file, obviously mine.

He sat down, leafing through the file, ignoring me. It's a standard ploy; 'I am so important that you can wait for me to talk to you'. They do it hoping you will talk first, get nervous. If I hadn't seen it in every form for over a century, it might have even worked. I just watched him.

That bothered him, so he closed the file, then opened my passport. It wasn't really a forgery; it was a legitimate passport issued to me, and if they ran my name, it would come back as valid. The same was true of my Bonded Courier ID. Of course the Company was owned by the Society, so that was not a problem either.

"Is this the best you could do?" He asked in very bad Russian.

"Captain, I speak just about every European language, so answering in Russian does not make me Russian, any more than you speaking it does." I replied in English. "I also speak seven Asian Languages, including three forms of Chinese, Afrikaans and Swahili, which does not make me Asian, or African. But since my English is better than your Russian, let's converse in that."

He frowned, looking at my passport. "Rayna Valeria Belescu." He read. "That is not a German name."

"It is Romanian. As am I by birth."

"So how did some Commie get a German passport?"

I sighed. "I know how bad the American school system is with European history, so I will explain using small words. My mother fled ahead of the Soviet Army until she reached Bavaria, where she met the American Army coming East. When the war ended, we were in a Displaced Persons camp, and while the Communists were busy demanding that their own be returned, including, mind you, Russians that had fled the revolution almost forty years before, they were not as adamant about those from the nations they had occupied, including my homeland, so we were not forced to return unless we wished to."

"That would make you, what, 38?" He looked at the picture, then at me again. "Pretty well preserved for 38. I would have thought you were in your mid 20s."

"Good genetics, Captain." Actually I had looked like my 'mid 20s' since my real mid twenties in the early 19th century. "After the war those who decided to stay in Western Europe were allowed to apply for citizenship, and my mother and I were among them. I have been a naturalized German citizen since 1948."

He set the passport down, then motioned toward the case. "About this case. Open it."

"No, Captain." He gave me a sharp look. "Under International Law, a bonded courier's case is like a diplomatic bag. Without a court order with proof of guilt, you cannot demand that I open it, even if I could."

"You can't open it?"

"I have no need to open it. It is not my place to know what I am carrying. I was hired for my honesty and integrity; not my curiosity."

"I can get a court order." He warned.

"With what probable cause? That I have an accent from Eastern Europe and you 'believe' I am a spy?" I laughed. "Would the Communists really send someone obvious?"

He glared at me. "You contacted a man named Phan about going to Prey Veng via Tay Ninh Province." I nodded. "Care to tell me why?"

"I am carrying the case to a British archeologist named Ronald Abernathy. He is in Prey Veng Province, and thanks to a smuggler, he has been named as a smuggler of artifacts." I raised my hand. "This is not the first time he has been accused, and it will probably not be the last. But every such claim before has proven false. He cannot leave Cambodia via the normal routes; the Cambodian authorities are naturally very interested in stopping the exportation of such artifacts and would use extreme measures to find out what he he might have. They would not care if he dies under interrogation.

"The organization he works for; an offshoot of the British Museum, was worried, since he went to Prey Veng thanks to one of his local associates, and there are no artifacts to steal there. I was commissioned to find him and deliver this case and then to assist him in crossing the border into Vietnam, where he can go to the local British Legation and request assistance."

"So they what, expect you to cross an international border, deal with the idea that you're going to be facing not only the Khmer Rouge but the Viet Cong, and the indigenous forces of both countries and the American forces, and expect you to succeed? Who are you? Wonder Woman?"

I smiled. "Let us just say that I am very good at my job."

"No one is that good."

I looked at him, and I knew from his heartbeat that he was confused, and a bit frightened. "I am."

"Phan is dead." I looked at him, pretending to be surprised. "Why did you contact him of all people?"

"I was given a list of a dozen contacts known by my Agency to be connected with smuggling. He would know where I should attempt a crossing in the next four or five days."

He settled down, visibly drawing in his strength. "So you need to go to Tay Ninh. Why don't I get you there."

"That is ill advised, Captain." I warned him. "I can cross alone, but more than one would be dangerous."

"Then I can report that I assisted you."

"Be warned, Captain. This is not some exercise at your military Academy. I understand exactly what I face. You could die; and all you take with you."

"That may be true." He snarled. "But I will be right behind you with my .45 in your back. If I die, you die."

I looked at him. He was a damn fool, but I had to try. "That, I would not bet on."

Border

I ended up flying into Tân Biên district in a Huey. Captain Sanders had lived down to my expectations; he brought four men with him, and flew with me there. We dropped five kilometers from the border, and his claim that I would have his .45 in my back was a reality. I had the case, and him behind me as we approached the border.

I was in full battle mode; as I have not been since the 30s when I fought against the Nazi Gegengheist Gruppe (Counter-Ghost Group) during the war.

We approached the border. I used the demon eye I had after facing Beliar so many decades earlier. Between it and the natural attributes I received by being a Dhamphir I could see the hell he was leading us into.

"Captain Saunders, we're headed into an ambush." I told him.

"Yeah. Pull the other one, bitch. It has bells on it."

Fine, idiot. I circled my right wrist, reducing the cuff's length until all I had was a bar of steel. There were five of them, and six of us, counting me. I twisted on last time, the cuff chain shattering. "If you want to live, duck."

"What?" He said as a flare went off where our point man was. I dropped, set down the case, and dived for the jungle around us as hell reigned. I rolled, then dived aside as his .45 fired. I felt the burn of the round punching though me from the back through my stomach. The bastard had shot me!

I rolled, coming up. The demon eye I had earned three decades before scanned, along with everything I gained from having Kagan as my father. I could see five of them, two to the left, three to the right. I targeted the pair behind us, moving with all my natural speed. One of the men there had drawn a whistle after blasting the Captain's team, and blew it before realizing he had a living homing missile incoming. I hit him before he could raise the Dragunov rifle, ripping out his throat with my nails. Behind him the second man had a DPM machine gun He tried to turn it, and I pinned him to the ground. I was in pain, and I reacted using my father's race.

I bit him, feeling his blood fill and heal me. He screamed, beating at me as I stole his life. When he fell, I was healed, and I snatched up the sniper's rifle from their leader. The other three had moved down to the trail, and using my father's sight, I could see them clearly even in the darkness. I chose starting at the front, and killed them, one by one. When they were all dead, I checked their weapons. One had a PPD Pistolet-Pulemyot Degtyaryova, the knock off the of German Bergmann MP 28 made by Vasily Degtyaryov back in the 1930s. It used the 7.62×25mm Tokarev pistol cartridge.

There were three of the Model C96 better known as broom handle Mausers, one in 7.62 Tokarev, another in 9mm, and; I wanted to gasp in pleasure, .45 ACP caliber. It was a classic! There were two who had an Ak47, and I took one rifle and all of the additional magazines from them along with the Dragunov. I left the machine gun. I could have carried it, but it would slow me down, and while the ammunition could be stripped from the belt, carrying it would only make me carry the rifle longer. Though I did strip out enough to fill the 20 round magazine.

Only then did I search the American dead. There were four carrying M16s and I took the magazines from all of them along with the grenades for the M16/79 one had carried which I appropriated. Two bandoliers of grenades along with the drum magazines from the Degtyaryov, three magazines for the AK, and eight for the M16. None of the Americans had even gotten off a shot, except for Saunders shooting me. I packed all of the ammunition into a backpack one of the Americans was carrying along with all the food the dead had, and all of their canteens. I hung the Mausers in their wooden holsters/ gun stocks around my waist, one on either hip, the last in the back. I extended the slings on the rifles until they were hanging on me like a pack animal. Finally I slid on the pack.

Only then did I return to my case. Saunders was curled up in a ball of pain, clutching the wound in his side. I flipped the case around and opened it. "You said you couldn't open it." He gasped.

"You did not need to know what was in it." I pulled out my swords, twin Turkish sabers that I strapped to my back. Except for my passport, which had not been returned, there was nothing in it worth carrying on except for three rolls of French Louis D'Or gold coins. I pocketed them.

"You lied."

"No, I told almost all of the truth except for the case, and my mission. We know Abernathy is dead. I am going to find out how and why he was killed, then to avenge him"

"Help... me."

"I feel no sympathy for you, Captain Saunders. I did not ask you to accompany me. You decided that. You had a gun in my back if you recall." I motioned at where the bullet had come out. "You even shot me."

"You're... healed."

"Yes."

"How?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Radio." He pointed at the man who had gone down in front of him.

"Smashed." I replied. I could hear his heart beat rise as his body tried to move what little blood remained. I took his pistol, removing the magazine and the extra he carried, then pressed it back into his hand. "Your back was broken by the bullet. You will not live out the night. This way, you can go on if you wish." He clutched it, then raised it, aiming at my face. "Shooting me again will not get you out alive."

I stood, adjusting the weapons. Carrying three rifles, three pistols, and all the assorted ammunition would be a pain, but as I had to expend the bullets, I would discard the weapons. Except for the .45 caliber and 9mm Broomhandles, I could see the old Imperial crest on the head stamp, and the serial number was only 4 numbers long, meaning it was one of the first produced back in the last century. Those I would keep even empty. I drew out the .45, and began thumbing shells from the magazine I had taken from his pistol as I walked away.

There was a single crack from behind me, but I kept on walking.


	3. Problems along the way

Problems on the way

Crossing the Mekong was the main problem I had. It is home to two breeds of crocodile, what is called the Siamese crocodile, and the saltwater crocodile. Either would consider a human a meal, and I had no intention of discovering if they would consider me edible. I hunkered down and waited.

There is a lot of traffic on the river, and soon enough a sampan heading upriver came into view. I waved until they saw me. I asked them to carry me across, and if I had been a human woman, it might have been a problem. Even as heavily armed as I was I was still apparently a woman. I could see the thoughts flashing. There were three of them, and by surrounding me they would be able to disarm me, followed by rape and robbery, then into the river.

As they approached, I gave the man on the bow a smile. His own false smile faltered. "Are you hungry?" I asked softly. Then I snapped the Dragunov to the side, and I fired. The crocodile's chest exploded. I lowered the rifle, motioning. "About 600 pounds of him for you, my gift." He was definitely wary now; I had used my full speed, which meant I had gone from still, to deadly, to still in less than two seconds. "Try me, and it will not be cheap."

He stared into my eyes, then made a motion behind his back to the other two. The prow pushed into the mud, and I stepped onto the boat as if it were merely a step from grass to a sidewalk. I stood near the sculling oar as the three men began dressing out the carcass. I could tell from their furtive glances that my demonstration had convinced them to let me pass. They moved fast, all of them watching me like a staked out goat watching the approaching tiger. Once across I flipped a gold coin into one man's hand, then with a running leap raced down the boat, and into the air to land on the opposite bank. I was gone from their sight before they could even grab a weapon.

Fifteen miles further, as the sun began to set, I paused. Ahead of me, I could faintly hear people moving. My ears are much better than human hearing, so they were perhaps a mile further. I crept forward, and looked down on a path lined with bicycles loaded with hundred pound bags of rice, other foods and ammunition. Scattered along the length of the trail were tired people getting up from their sleep. It was a section of what the Americans called the Ho Chi Minh trail. I could not see far, but what I could see had the coolies and their defending guards.

I switched to the vampiric vision that would allow me to sense anything alive. There were perhaps a hundred people in sight as I swept the trail. There was little chance I could run through them and escape; they would not want anyone to know they were on this side of the border. I would have to wait an hour or more after they began moving again. North was out, so I scanned south.

The column only ran for a quarter mile further, but there were some figures further on; too far out for their own security. I had read the military writing of all these lands, whether the Colonial power or the ancients who had been there before. Their own training would say less than a quarter mile ahead. Yet these extra people were almost half a mile away; far enough to be defeated in detail. I focused on those fleeting infrared signatures.

I cannot really explain how the eye of Beliar works. It is part of a demon that attached itself to me back in 1936, and works as I concentrate. I focused, and made the eye work. There were seconds of disorientation; as if I had halved the distance in one step. I could see what was obviously a white man kneeling, watching the front of the column. This was not good. With the French run out, that left Americans to make such a play, and I could tell from the camouflage he wore that he was American. He was scanning the column, then lifted something to his face. A radio microphone for an American radio.

It was too far to hear, but I knew what he was, and what he was doing. The American 'Green Berets' had made a habit of crossing the border and dealing with the Viet Cong supply convoys when they could. Illegal under international laws, yet with banditry prevalent, it was hard to prove that Americans or their allies had committed an act inside a neutral country.

He was speaking to someone, and I felt a thrill of danger. He would not be calling an artillery unit; it was too easy to prove what had slaughtered these people. But an air strike? That could be explained as an accident. I turned, looking upward. There was one aircraft far above, a small spotting aircraft. But to the south... three fast moving aircraft were turning in on attack runs, the first barely ten miles away!

That was when a series of flashes lit the trail starting almost two miles further back running toward me like a river of fire. That river came past me like lightning to end where the front of the column was. It must have taken days for the Special Forces team to mark the trail with incendiary markers, but now with the target in the kill zone all that work was going to pay off. The first plane shot past as explosions walked down the path starting at the first of the flares like lethal firecrackers. The second was inbound. I would be out of the footprint of that plane's bombs, but still within it for the last.

I knew that if I did not move fast, I might be caught in what was about to happen. I set myself, like a runner in the hundred yard dash. I drew my right hand sword, then took off running. I burst from the forest in the midst of the coolies. They dived aside, and I let them go. There were two armed men directly in my path, and I dealt with them as I charged through.

Ahead of me a figure moved, and I saw the woman looking up and back, confused. Her hands had paused on fastening up her pants; probably she had been allowed to go to relieve herself, but she was in my path. Then she turned, and she looked down to see mecharging toward her.

Something about her eyes... I dipped down, and instead of running over her like a... what is it called? A football lineman, I instead caught her with my shoulder, snatching her up and running on. I was slowed, but with the second set of six cluster bombs exploding down the trail, I was not going to slow down.

Then the last aircraft was dropping his bombs, we were in the forest beyond the trail, and I leaped behind a tree, slamming her into it with bruising force. I covered her mouth as the area I had just traversed began to be ripped up by explosions. We stood there, the tree protecting us as shrapnel blasted out, wiping away the people that I had passed, walking down the path like the Grim Reaper in overdrive. As the blasts died away I could hear screaming from the wounded. Then to my far right; south, I heard the economical bursts of weapons fire. The Green Berets were moving against the shattered survivors, mopping up.

I pointed toward the direction of that fire, and her eyes widened. I then pointed behind me, away from the hell ground. "We go that way." I said in Vietnamese. She looked confused, but understood when I switched to French. Silently, we moved further into Cambodia. We could hear the firing for a long time.

I raised my hand, and she stopped. In my vampire sight I could see three or four figures approaching us stealthily. I drew my swords rather than a rifle; if they were villagers or Khmer Rouge, I did not want weapons fire to bring more toward us. One of them stepped from behind a tree. It looked human, but I knew otherwise.

People forget that Vampires are known world wide. While most do not believe in them, I knew better; I had spent over a century finding and eliminating them on my own. There are many theories in the Brimstone society as to how they first came to be, and the one I tended to favor was back in prehistory and legend, where magic was still common. In other words they were created, either accidentally or intentionally as human weapons many thousands of years ago.

Back then, they would have been the perfect terror weapon, something that strikes from the darkness, killing, and vanishing. If accidentally created some of their habits would make more sense. They are known to hang around areas in the midst of wars, because their victims would simply be yet another dead body on the battlefield later. Also their ability to reproduce by using the same victim over a period of time; usually three days.

Why that was is true; the three day feeding causing the dead to rise, is not known. Any vampire more than a decade or two old would have gone through at least one period of taking one victim as a mobile food store to conceal their existence, and finding that the almost drained human would rise as one of them. Any smart enough to know this would also assure that the victim would not rise by decapitating them.

But as with any group of humans, there are the fools; the ones who believe they are superior because mankind are their chosen prey. The ones who create new vampires out of some belief that they have that right. When it happens, they are discovered, and either the locals destroy them, or the Society finds out, and eliminates them. Of should I say, they send me and I eliminate them; at least recently.

"They are jiang shi. What you would call vampires." I told the woman.

She looked first confused, then contemptuous. "But they are imagination enfantine! The fantasy of a child." She gasped as the one that had barred our path hissed, and the fangs appeared. "Mon Dieu!" The others came forward, moving to block our path and any attempt to escape. A vampire can run as fast as the average motor car on a freeway; about sixty miles an hour. They had not yet surrounded us, but if she tried to run, they would catch her easily. If I had not been there, she would be dead.

But I was there. "Do not be alarmed by what you are about to see." I told her, advancing. Like any predator, all eyes were on me. The two that formed the arcs of their semicircle began to move in behind me. There was enough blood in one of us to feed them all for the next two days, so losing one of us would not stop them from surviving. I waited standing perhaps three yards from the ones before me, hearing the others moving in from behind. They would attack as would any pack predator, like wolves or hyenas, one keeping me occupied so the others could close in to kill. That is, if I let them. I sighed, closing my eyes for a second, then moved with full speed.

The one before me was moving in to attack as my right hand sword cut across the belly, causing her to fall forward at the sudden pain. My left hand sword took her across the neck, cutting through the spine. I turned, and the one on my left flank came in, and I swept that sword in an arc that sent his head flying. I kicked the other one behind me in the chest, and he went back and down as I engaged the last, chopping into his chest. He had not even gasped at the pain as a sword removed his head as well.

I turned, charging back toward the woman, cutting down the one I had kicked, assuring his spine was shattered before I took off his head. Then I went back to the last, the one I had crippled, that was trying to claw her way to freedom. I put her out of her misery, and returned to the woman.

"You moved so fast... What are you?"

"I am as much a legend as they." I motioned to the scattered bodies. "But only if you have read the stories of vampires from Romania or the Balkans." I ripped a strip of cloth off the body nearest to her, using it to clean my blades. "I will stay with you until daylight. The Americans will have evacuated by then, and you can move down the side of the trail to safety. I would suggest you watch carefully. Some of the bomblets from that attack would be delayed activation, or ones unexploded by chance that can still kill you."

"Why did you save me?" She asked.

"Your eyes. They reminded me of my mother."

Reminiscence

My early life was what I had thought normal. Of course, not knowing yet what my father was, I did not have a true definition of what was normal. From what my mother had told me, I knew she had met him at a feast. He had been tall handsome and rich. She had only been about seventeen when he met her, and he had swept that callow girl off her feet, and stolen her away from her family. She had not understood why he refused to marry her, nor why he showed such disdain for the church. She had merely accepted that she was to have nothing to do with them, and when I was born, to raise me away from the church as well.

I figured out later that mother was not that bright. Otherwise she might have wondered that her husband, who was not a Boyar; a noble, and not a merchant, would have enough money to maintain us in a house, albeit without servants. Or wonder why she only saw him at night. She would also have stopped going to church for confession, even when she was told that unless she married my father, and baptized me, she was considered apostate.

It was her worry about my soul that caused her death. She had brought a vial of holy water, and tried to at least baptize me herself. But she was shocked when the finger she had anointed with the liquid caused the cross she drew on my forehead to form welts as if she had used boiling water. Like a fool, she had asked the priest why that had happened.

Vampire hunters came to town, and hid to watch our house. When my father came, they attacked him, and died in the attempt. When he stormed in furious, he demanded an explanation. She had bid me hide when he arrived, and I heard them arguing. When he discovered what she had done, he exploded. I heard her choked off scream, and waited until he stopped shouting my name. I waited another hour before I crept out. The sun was coming up as I found her body, drained of blood. I was still kneeling beside it when the parish priest and several other men came to our house.

I was sent to a convent, but not to be treated like any other orphan. The priest had told them of his suspicions, and I was to be used like a laboratory animal, to test the legends. It was then that I first heard the word damphir, a child of a union of a vampire and a living woman. They tested me, throwing holy water on me, watching me writhe in torment. They discovered that sunlight and a cross had no effect on me; that I could be wounded, and heal if I drank blood.

The last would not have been so bad if they had merely poured the blood in a cup for me to drink as they did at first. But after the first week, they brought in someone from the local dungeons, slashed me several times with blades, then locked me in a cell with him. After a time, I gave in to my natural urges, draining him to death to heal myself. They merely cut off his head, dragged the body out, and locked the door again.

Less than a week later I escaped.

Dawn

I watched the sun rise. The woman had fallen asleep, and started awake when I touched her. I pointed the way, then handed her several vials of holy water, a knife I had taken from one of the dead, and two of the gold coins. Finally, as much as I wanted to keep it, I also handed her the 9mm Mauser. "The gun is in case you run into someone who is not daunted by the knife. Go back up trail until you find a village, and use the money to get you home."

"And these?" She motioned toward the holy water.

"There might be more of them on your path." I motioned to the bodies that had begun to melt away in the sunlight. "They only come out at night." I took off my crucifix, handing it to her last. "Before dark, find somewhere to hide where they must come at you from only one direction; including above you, for they can climb like a cat and attack from above.

"Now I do not know your religion if you practice one, but this will force them to leave you alone, but you must believe in it. The cross… the bread and wine… the confessional… they are only symbols. Without faith, the cross is only wood, the bread baked grain, the wine sour grapes. You must believe that the god this represents would protect you." I stood.

"But what of you?" She protested. "Won't you need this?"

"No." I tapped one of the sword hilts. "They may not know it yet, but I am their worst nightmare made flesh. Go with god."


	4. Escape and Refuge

Escape and refuge

Escaping from the abbey was easier than you might think. While I looked like any six year old, I was already as strong as any adult man; They had proven this by chaining me to a weight greater than my own, and used holy water to flog me into lifting it. I was also fast, again they proved this by caging me with a hungry panther and telling me to run or be slaughtered.

But they would still look at me, and see the child, not what I really was. So I pretended to give up, to go along with their 'testing' willingly. After about a week, they stopped sending four or five to escort me. I waited until there was only one, a nun.

When she came to escort me, I was ready. I had nothing but the rough robe they had used to replace my finer clothing, and no shoes. But I had to escape before they finished their tests. My usefulness to them would be over when that happened.

The nuns had taken a vow of silence, so she merely motioned. I stood, and walked out, turning the way she directed. Ahead of me was a stairway leading to more torments, and a window, the beautiful sky of freedom beyond it. I didn't think that freedom could be another word for death. I did not know how tall the building was, or where it was located. There might be a fall of hundreds of feet.

I didn't care.

I broke into a run. Behind me the nun must have pulled out a hand bell, because a moment after I did, I heard the clangor of it. I leaped, the window shattering as I went through it. Then I slammed into a tree branch. I bounced from branch to branch until finally I hit the ground. I looked up dazed at the missing fourth floor window I had escaped through. I was cut by glass, bruised by the impacts, and wished I could just stay where I was. But if I did they would capture me again easily, and after this they would never give me a chance again.

I staggered to my feet in the snow, then ran downhill, the easiest path. I dodged around trees, using every bit of my speed to make it as far as possible before they could mount a pursuit. I found a deer path, ducking onto it without slowing. A small herd of red deer leaped away at my approach, and were gone as I pounded on.

Ahead of me, I could see a road, and as I reached it, I looked both directions. No one in sight, though I could hear the sound of hooves to my right. I ran a dozen steps down it away from that sound, then leaped, catching a tree branch about ten feet up. With skill I didn't even know I had I flipped up to stand on top of it, then ran down to the trunk of the tree, using it to shield me from view.

A dozen men in the livery of the Church Militant rode below, slowing when my footprints disappeared. I curled up against the tree, hand clamped over my own mouth to stop me from making too much noise. I could hear not only my heart, but the hearts of every man and animal below. I was sure they could hear them as well. They argued, some wanting to go back to the trail; obviously I must have laid a false trail, and had gone on it through the woods. Others thought they should wait until the handler for the hounds arrived.

I just wished they would go away. Finally, they did. I was alone, ten feet up a tree, and terrified into stillness. It was perhaps three hours to sunset, and I decided to wait until then to continue my escape. I was freezing, hungry, as they only fed me once a day, and my wounds, though closed, hurt. I did not expect to live out the night, but that did not bother me. Even if they found me in the spring thaw frozen and lifeless, I would still have died free.

There was the rattle of harness, and down the road from the direction I had fled before my leap, I saw an odd wagon, looking as if someone had made a huge barrel into a home on wheels. A small chimney stuck up, and I could see what looked like heat coming from it. The first wagon was followed by five more, and I decided that just a few minutes of warmth would be worth it, even if they threw me back into the snow. As the driver passed from view, I moved around the tree, back onto the branch, then hung down. It was low enough that I merely dropped a few inches onto it.

I huddled near the clay pipe, grateful for the warmth, though I had to lay flat to avoid rolling off. Suddenly the wagon stopped. I thought I had been seen, and raised up a little. No, the armed men on horseback had stopped the wagons, and were arguing with the driver of the first one. I slid to the back on the rounded structure. There was a set of folded steps before what looked like a normal door, and I held onto the roof as I rolled forward, and lowered myself to stand on them.

I opened the door enough to slide inside, and closed it. Hopefully, they would not search them. I turned and froze. An ancient woman sat at a table, grinding something with a mortar and pestle. She was looking straight at me, and my heart also froze. She cocked her head, listening to the shouting that now included several people, and I knew they were going to search the wagons for the 'demon'.

The woman motioned for me to come closer. I slid forward, ready to strike out if she tried to grab me. She put out her hand questing, and I saw that a white film covered her eyes. She was blind. She touched the edge of my robe, rubbing it between her fingers, then the hand moved down to take my own. But she did not clasp me firmly, more like the same motion she had used to examine the cloth. She rolled my hand around, rubbing the back of my fist until I opened it. She slide a gentle finger along my palm, head cocked as if with her finger she could read the lines on it.

There was the sound of tramping toward us, and she touched her lips to signal me to be silent, then reached down to pull up the long cloth that covered the table. I understood she was offering me a place to hide, and I dived beneath it as she dropped it back. I found myself with my back against her knees as the steps were dropped, and the door was slammed open.

"As I said, no one but our family." A man complained as someone climbed in. He had a sweet voice, with an edge a amusement in it. "Now you disturb miri púridaia, my grandmother."

"She is alone?" Someone else with a harsh voice asked.

"She is the one who makes our medicines. She is good enough to support her own vurdon, and is respected by us all."

"If you see this red headed monster, you must inform us immediately." The harsh man ordered. "She will kill any who befriend her. Only mother church can protect us from such things."

"As you have said countless times, Kooli." The laughing voice replied. "If she is seen, it will be done."

There was silence, then the men went back out, and the door closed. I started to move, but the woman held me. "Be still, Sedre." She whispered. "We must be sure they do not decide to tear apart our homes in their search."

I waited for a long time, until the shouting died down, and the wagons were once again moving. She pushed me out gently. "You are shivering as if you had been in the snow for hours." She motioned toward a kettle that sat on the stove that warmed the interior. "Pour both of us some tea. Talk to me as I work."

I did as she bid. The tea was hot and sweet. I clutched the cup to try to warm my hands. I spoke of my life, of my mother's death. Of the men and women of the church tormenting me.

"Ah, you are Dhampir." She said after a moment. She asked me to hand her a bottle full of clear liquid, and she opened it, pouring two small glasses about the size of a thimble, then filled a jar with the mixture she had been crushing, and poured it full as well before stoppering it. She handed one of the glasses to me, and took it in a neat shot. I followed suit, gasping as the harsh liquid seemed to burn it's way to my stomach. She smiled gently. "To warm you inside as well.

"While they see you as a demon, they could not be more wrong. What do you know about vampires?"

"Only the stories any child would know." I admitted. The fiery liquid had settled in my stomach, and warmth spread from it.

She nodded. "Among some people, they speak of vampires as if they have not left all of humanity behind them. This I know to be truth in part. Making a person into a vampire does not change them; make them good is they were evil before for example. I have met vampires on this continent that have taken the guardianship of a village or people as their mission in this new life. There are villages where they sleep safe in their beds from bandits because their guardian spirit keeps them safe.

"There are others where a vampire uses them as we do animals we hunt to eat. Where they fear not only bandits or their own government, but also the thing that comes to slay by night; where they sleep huddled together with crosses on every window."

"So they are just people that drink blood instead of eating food?" I asked. She held out her cup and I poured. She sipped, nodding.

"But it goes deeper. Among the people to the south of your homeland, they believe other appetites still exist. If they were sexual beings in their life, they retain that. Both male and female vampires still feel the desire of naked flesh against their own. That deny their own death by reenacting the one thing people always do, trying to bring new life into the world." She directed me to a shelf full of bottles of dried herbs, spelling out names so I chose the right ones. She took the two items I had gotten, and without my help measured then began to grind them.

"For the women, it is in vain. Death can not bring forth life, no matter how hard they try, even if they have become vampire within days or weeks. But the men sometimes succeed. They father a child on the unsuspecting human woman. That is what a Dhampir is, a child of both vampire and human."

"Then I am a monster." I whispered sadly.

"No more than a mule, the cross breeding of a horse and a donkey is." She replied reproving me. "A mule is stronger than a horse, larger than a donkey, and smarter than either. While a donkey or horse will kick you if you are behind them, a mule can and will kick you where ever you stand. You lose little by having a father that is vampire. You also gain things he can and cannot do.

"Sunlight bothers you little; little more than it does me. You can eat and drink what is normal, so you do not need to feed as he would. The cross has no effect on you, and while holy water will burn you, it is the difference between having hot water in contact with your flesh instead of a hot iron pressed into it. You can feed as he does, though only when your life is in danger, or you need the strength to heal wounds.

"You are as fast and almost as strong as they. You can also do what they cannot; you can sense them with practice. I believe God allowed such as you for only one purpose; to make the natural enemy of vampires."

"Natural enemy?"

"There are animals that by nature are enemies. Far to the East, in a land called India there is a poisonous snake called the cobra. Some breeds of it have venom so deadly it can kill an animal called the elephant." She waved at the roof above us. "Picture an animal as large as this vurdon or larger, felled by a snake barely as long as you are tall. Yet in that same land is an animal slightly larger than a ferret called a mongoose. It is mostly immune to that deadly venom. When they confront each other, there is no quarter asked nor given.

"The snake will strike and strike, trying to kill his enemy, and the mongoose will fight with the tenacity of a wolf desperate to eat. You are like the mongoose; immune to your enemy, and deadly to him. But normal men fear you because they do not understand this." She looked up. "We prepare to camp." She poured hot water into the mixture in her mortar.

I could hear people moving outside, and wanted to leap back into hiding, but she stopped me. I heard the steps drop, then the door opened. A tall man with dark hair and skin climbed in, looking at me curiously. He spoke, but stopped when the old woman raised her hand. "It is not fair to speak a language she does not understand, Ataman."

He sighed. "Grandmother, what have you done? You know they search for her."

"She is not the monster they claim, grandson. She is Dhampir. She is under my protection." I could tell he wished he could disagree. Finally he merely nodded. She sensed it. "Send Ludmilla to me." She ran her fingers through my bright red hair. "For a time, her hair will be black."

He went away grumbling. A short time later a girl with the same deep complexion of the man, and hair as black as an raven's wing entered.

"Ludmilla, this is..." The old woman turned to me. "I am sorry, chid, I did not ask your name."

"Rayna." I replied.

"Well we cannot call you that. In a land to the south, and another far to the west that means Queen, and they would be upset that you use it. Besides the church here would know it" She considered. "We will call you Rayne. They do not care to understand our names anyway. I am Dagmar Belescu, and this is my great grand daughter, Ludmilla." We nodded hesitantly to each other. "Ludmilla, we are going to dye her hair black for a time. You will need the fine brush."

Ludmilla unbound, then washed my hair. As I lay back with my head over the bowl, she patiently used the brush to apply the mixture I now know of Indigo dye and Henna to my hair. Once it was dry, they then washed my hair again. What remained of the herbs rinsed out, leaving my hair black with some red highlights of my own hair color. Then she went and came back with some clothing like hers.

I don't know when it happened, but I was patiently watching Ludmilla cleaning the last of the mixed dye when she sighed. "What are you looking at?"

"A pretty girl."

She shook her head as she blushed. "No, if you are to live with us, you must learn our tongue. I am a tawnie juve, as are you."

"Good." Dagmar said. "Now, both of you go help with dinner."

"Yes, púridaia Baro Dagmar." She set the mortar on a shelf near Dagmar's hand. "I think I will call you miri kushti pen." Ludmilla took my hand.

"I thought I was to be Rayne?"

"That means my dear sister. I always wanted a sister."

"So have I."

We ran, two girls giggling together toward the communal fire.

And so the best nine years of my life began.

Life and Death

If you ever want to understand everything about life and death, go to the jungle. Every part of life and death is there. The smell of decay smells like rising bread dough. Yeast making something that one day will be edible and delicious, but not yet. Everything is being born, living what life they are given, dying in their time. It's a balance between life and death that is never ending.

To a jungle man is no more important than a microbe. A tribe slashes and burns out a clearing, and plants crops until the soil gives no more, and they move on. Less than six months later there is no sign that they were ever there. There are farms or plantations that the French spent almost two centuries turning into working propositions that are now nothing but trees growing through ruins. Of it all only concrete and steel survives, but even that is eroded.

Where an Army unit would expect to travel between ten and fifteen miles a day, I could travel almost thirty. Where they tire, I am still able to move. That is why I anticipated only five days from the Mekong to my target.

And I alone live here without problems. I do not worry about the diseases and parasites humans do. To a mosquito I am something they cannot gain nourishment from, so they do not bite me. The same with the biting fly and leeches. Larger animals, such as tigers are still a problem, but I can teach them lessons in evasion and stealth. I am a shadow moving almost silently through the trees. But there is also man to deal with.

Most of course want nothing to do with the three wars being fought in this region. There is a saying from when the Viet Minh were fighting the French; tất cả các chế độ đều giống nhau, All Regimes are the same. To a farmer or merchant, it doesn't matter who is in charge, those who live under them still do the same thing, which is try to survive.

I came upon the carnage of a small caravan, drovers and merchants scattered like dolls. Bandits? Khmer Rouge? Government troops? There is no way to know who has killed them all, no trace of their goods remain. I left their bodies where they lay; the jungle would take them back into it's bosom and go on.

I went a few miles further, and could hear the noise of people. A village or another caravan perhaps. I inched forward. There was a shot, and I froze. Then shouting to my right. I moved slowly toward the left, and found the edge of a clearing. There were a dozen small huts, and perhaps thirty people. I watched as four men walked into the village. Two carried a pig slung across a pole, the others carried rifles, old Berthier fusil Mle 1902; rifle, model of 1902 in 8mm Lebel. One of the men was angrily working the action of his rifle.

They were old weapons; the French had issued them to their units assigned here because they were easier to maintain than the Lebel itself, and they had been replaced with more modern weapons just before the second World War. No doubt with the round no longer in production, they had resorted to black powder, meaning they fouled and jammed more often. They would also have problems getting the correct bullets, meaning they had what were now single shot rifles.

I had run out of food; when I exerted myself to maintain my pace, I of course had to eat more. I could not take the time to hunt, so I was limited to what I could carry. I considered what I carried, and decided to do some quick trading. I stepped from the jungle on the edge of the clearing. They did not notice me, so I carried the Dragunov as if I were just a hunter strolling by, and padded toward the huts.

A woman saw me, and shouted, pointing. I paused, watching as every eye went to me. The armed men frantically tried to reload their weapons. The jammed one was thrown down, and the man drew a wicked machete. I merely stood there, watching them. Then I raised my right hand from the rifle I carried, and raised it open palm toward them. The two armed men moved toward me, the rifleman stopping about thirty yards away, the other closing to about five.

"I would like to trade." I said in French. The man looked at my clothing, then at my weapons.

"What do you need."

"Fruit, ten kilos or rice, some smoked meat if you have it."

"What will you trade?"

"Gold." I pulled a coin out, flashing it.

"We need a new rifle." He motioned toward the Dragunov. "We will give you three kilos of rice, two of dried fruit and half a kilo of smoked meat for that."

I motioned toward the coin. "Fifteen kilos of rice, five of fruit, six of meat, and you will get this rifle and one gold Louis."

"I would rather have the other rifle as well." He motioned toward the AK47.

"And you would give?"

"Twelve kilos of rice, four of fruit, and three of meat for both rifles and ammunition."

I shrugged. "Not good enough. The meat and fruit are not negotiable."

"We will make it fifteen kilos of rice and all else as you ask if you add one gold Louis."

"Seventeen."

He sighed. "Done." He turned, shouting at the rifleman, who ran back toward the camp. Women came out carrying the food, and I inspected it carefully. It wasn't that I feared poison or spoilage; at need I could eat rotten food. But if I acted as my nature would suggest, they would wonder why I didn't bother. I measured the weight by picking the sacks up, and it was close enough. I took the Dragunov, cleared the action before handing it to him.

I walked him through how to load and field strip it, and did the same for the AK. We were surrounded by the children who watched silently. He caressed the Dragunov as if it were a woman. He looked at the magazine, only one.

"If you wish, you may stay for our evening meal." He told me grudgingly. I considered his expression. There was no threat in him. Either he was an honest man, or he was a better poker player than any I had met. I pulled out another gold coin, dropping it in his hand. He looked at it suspiciously. "What is this for?"

"Your kindness. It has been a long time since people were kind to me for no reason."


	5. Folki

Folki

The next years were spent in an endless circle of continental Europe. Across the bottom of the Holy Roman Empire into Turkish Armenia that first year for the winter, into the lands of Venice into the Papal States as far south as Bologna. Then on through the smaller Italanate states into the kingdom of Sardinia, and into France. the smaller German states, into Prussia on to Poland and then the 30 Russias. Finally, after following the Black Sea, and back into the Romanian Province of the Holy Roman Empire again. Some years, winter caught us late, and we wintered in the Papal States instead.

Even in the dead of winter there is food to be had if you know what to look for. I found that I could find one thing of value the others could not. There is a fungus growth called a truffle. Highly prized for it's flavor to the west. In most places they use swine to find them, in fact what you must do is watch them because the pigs love them as much as people did. They were all right, I suppose. But to me they were coin we could make, not something to fight over. Ludmilla and I worked especially hard to find winter herbs that Dagmar would turn into one of her potions.

To me that first year was a wonder. Until then I never seen more than portions of the village I had been born in. For the first time I saw other places, the wonder of the Black Sea stretching beyond the horizon. So many things. To my companions, those who would one day be my first true family, it was merely their path through the outer world, for to them their Vurdon, and their camp was the whole of it.

I learned so much that first year; how to read the signs carved into trees near farms and villages, because we avoided the cities. Whenever one of the families would pass through, they would leave marks on trees, fence posts, and stones, and they told us what places to avoid, because while we were an occasional sight to the people of the lands we passed through, it depended on the nature of the people there when it came to what would happen when we came through. Some would greet us warmly, let us camp for a few days, buy the medicines Dagmar would make, have worn pots fixed so they could be used for another year, even visit us to see us perform. For at night our camps became a wonderland for these people tied to the land.

In some places we were unwelcome as far as the leaders and headmen were concerned. They called us thieves, wastrels, gypsies. But we were the Folki, the people. If we were not welcome, we would leave, because there were other places to see. We had no nobles to bow to, no lands to tend, no nations to defend. And except for those who worked to keep the vurdons running, no real work.

Our women were sloe-eyed beauties renowned for their dancing, and men would come to see them, throwing coins that we used to buy what we did not make ourselves. Ludmilla's mother Tatiyana would tell their fortunes, using cards, a crystal ball, tea leaves or their palms. Dagmar's medicines were much sought after, and many days were spent gathering the herbs, then watching as she performed the magic of how they were made. Before too long I was helping with the grinding and mixing. She joked about some of them; that the pennyroyal tincture she made was for women who didn't want more children, that the belladonna one made women more doe eyed and attractive.

I also learned about myself during that year. That to me a tree was not an obstacle, but merely another path leading upward. One of the boys would sometimes perform by walking a rope stretched between trees, juggling as he paced it. No one was more surpised than I when I found I could swing myself up, and walk it as if I were on the ground. As our clan moved west that spring, I would join the boy Usheno as he walked the rope, then we would juggle between us to the roar of those who watched us. I also had an ear for languages, and my singing would draw the crowds to watch. As I heard them, I began to understand them; as if just hearing was enough. When our winter camp broke up I had already learned Armenian and Turkic, and in every land we traveled through I learned more.

Every few weeks my hair would be dyed black again. Still highlights of my natural red shown through, and the villagers called me fire hair, yog-bali inRomani, because it sometimes looked like the coals glowing in a bed of ash. For the first year it was necessary. While crossing into the Ottoman Empire meant facing an entirely different religion, a treaty had been signed between them and Mother Church that allowed them to watch over and protect their members of the faith in that other land. Posters warned of a red haired 'demon' who appeared to be a young girl. During the winter Dagmar had added tattoos on my face made of the same henna compound she used on my hair. When asked, the villagers would be told I had been promised to clan Shesti, a joke, because the word meant nonsense.

I also met the first vampire other than my father.

It was south of Adrianople, right before we went into our winter camp. Vladimir, who merely traveled with us rather than being Folki had come back to our slowly moving wagons. "There is the dark mark on a tree ahead. We must head east at the crossroads."

I was riding in the first wagon with Andrzej, one of Ludmilla's many cousins. "What does that mean?" I asked him. "The dark mark?"

"Vampir." He said tersely. "One of the bad ones. The dark mark means they take 'tribute' from those who pass by."

I thought about it, then my eyes widened in horror. "You mean-" He nodded. "Why don't they stop him?"

"Vampir are hard to kill and even to find. If you try and fail, they retaliate. Would you see all of us dead?"

"So what do we do?"

"We head east toward the sea, hope we get far enough away that we are out of its territory." He slapped the reins, driving the mules faster.

We finally had to stop. Mules can run farther than horses can, but they do grow tired. As the sun was setting we stopped because our mules were staggering. "Not far enough." Andrzej growled. He leaped down, and I went to help as he removed the tack from the animals. As soon as we had released them, he sent me back to the third vurdon which was home to Tatiyana and Merakano, along with Ludmilla. She was huddled beside the stove, and caught my hand pulling me down beside her. Neither of her parents were there, and she told me they had gone to quickly gather wood and dried dung for the fire. Tonight we would hide in the vurdon; protected, hopefully, by the crosses that were already mounted.

Her parents returned, closing the door firmly. "What of Dagmar?" I asked.

"She is in her own vurdon." Merakano told me. "She knows what hunts the night."

As night settled in, I found I could hear every sound outside. The hoot of an owl, the footsteps of a fox looking for prey. Then suddenly, as if an axe had fallen, it was dead silent. I knew, somehow, that the vampir had found us. I looked, and somehow knew where he was, for I also knew, somehow, that it had been a man in life.

"If you hide from me, I will slaughter your mules, and any who try to stop me. I will have my due, or you will all suffer." A raspy voice called. There was silence as we huddled down. "I will not tell you again. One of you will feed me, or I will feed on all of you one by one once the mules are dead. Decide."

Merakano sighed, standing. "Take care of our daughter, my love."

"Father! No!" Ludmilla shouted.

"Ah." that dread voice purred. "A young one. So sweet and tender. Send her out to me."

I felt terror. My only true friend, my sister by everything but blood. I could not envision a world where she was not in it. I caught her arm as she started to stand. I stood instead. But as I passed Merakano I slipped the dagger from his belt. Then I opened the door and leaped down.

The snow and bare trees made a chiaroscuro backdrop of the night. Only the small windows in the vurdon made from thinly sliced skins gave any light at all. The mules were huddled together for warmth, eating from their nosebags. I looked around, and for a moment I saw nothing but the background. But then I saw him. He was tall, skeletal, wrapped in dark cloth that I took to be an ancient winding sheet used on the dead when they were buried. He looked at me with eyes as red as my hair truly was.

"Come, little one. It will be swift, and the others will live to see another sunrise." I walked toward him, the blade of the dagger against my side. I stopped barely within reach of him, looking up, for he was very tall.

"You will not hurt them."

He looked at me curiously. "You say that as if I care what you might think." He reached forward, grabbing my arm. "And if I decided to kill them all, how would you stop me?" Then he pulled.

I went with the pull, the blade coming up, and I rammed it into his abdomen. He growled, then flung me aside. I went, the knife dragging from his flesh, causing me to spin like a top, and I hit one of the wheels of the vurdon behind me. I screamed as every rib on that side shattered from the impact. Somehow I stayed on my feet, turning as he glared at me, blood pouring down his side, but I could see the wound beginning to close even as I watched.

"For that I will eat them all little one. The other girl in the wagon will join me and together we will wipe your people from the face of-" An arrow punched through his lower chest, and he glared at it. Behind the monster I saw Vladimir calmly dropping his crossbow point down, his foot set in the stirrup on the front of it, pulling the bowstring back up as his other hand snatched a quarrel from the quiver on his side. "Foolish mortals!" The monster roared, snatching the quarrle from his chest, pulling it out like a thorn. He flung it aside, and I smelled something delicious as it imbedded in the vurdon's skin. It was a heady scent, like spice cake fresh from the oven, like my mother's plum and lamb stew.

It was his blood calling to my wounded body. Everything seemed to slow down as he turned toward Vladimir, giving me his back. While my body screamed in agony, I knew the cure was standing between me and that brave man.

The vampir started toward him, and I moved, ribs grating, lung punctured, still I moved like a great cat leaping on a fawn. I leaped upward, feeling the dagger imbed itself in his neck to the right even as I swarmed up onto his back. My fangs sank into his neck, and he screamed. I was like a tick, holding tight with dagger, legs and fangs as his blood flowed into me.

"Blasphemy!" He screamed, beating as my head, at my arm around his body, at my legs. The bones in my leg shattered, and as quickly began to reform. He was staggering, his blows weakening. Then he collapsed onto his knees, and I rode him down, still drawing out his blood, still healing myself.

"No more," he gasped, still trying to pummel me. "Mercy..."

I kept drinking his life. He fell face down, and still I drew him into me. "Rayne, move." I rolled my eyes, seeing the soft boots of Vladimir standing in front of the man. The point of his Turkish sword rested by his feet. "If we do not strike off his head, he will heal, he will return. Move. Now!"

I rolled aside, seeing the blade come up then down like a bowl of silver. The monster's head flew aside, and as it did, there was a scent of corruption. The body seemed to deflate, aging centuries. By the time I reached my feet it was a pile of dried bone with bits of flesh clinging, the head a skull with the flesh pulled tight.

Vladimir nodded. "Tell Merakano to come out and build a fire." I did as I was told. He looked at me as if horrified, and I thought of how I must look; my blouse ripped, blood running down my side and chin. Yet he took it all in, and nodded. "Look for wood, we will need it."

I ran into the woods, dragging back dead wood, going again and again as he sent me for more. The fire was as tall as I was before he stopped me. Vladimir gathered up the bones that had been the creature, throwing them into the fire. They almost exploded into flame as they fell into it. "Rayne, the head." He pointed. I picked it up. The eyes were still open, and I could see them almost begging. The lips forming the word please.

I looked into that dessicated face. "You would turn my sister into one of you?" I hissed at it. "Die!" I flung it into the bonfire, the mouth open and screaming silently as it exploded. The others came from the vurdon, silently watching as the monster burned with colors I had never seen in a fire before. Yet I found myself standing alone. I felt sadness. Even these people who knew what I was before were terrified.

"Thank you for distracting him." Vladimir said. I looked up. Distract? I had killed him! He looked at the people shunning me. "She came out so that Ludmilla would not die, or be turned into one of them." He motioned toward the fire. "Then when he caught her arm she stuck her blade into his stomach. That was long enough that I got in the killing blow."

"But the blood... on her side, her face." One of them, Hagai motioned.

"His blood on her side, and when I took his head, it splashed across her face." Vladimir looked at the man. "What did you think, that she fed on him?" Ludmilla pushed her parents hands aside, coming over to hug me. I returned it. She whispered her thanks, then drew me toward the vurdon to change clothes.

No more was said about it. I had just become a foolishly brave girl, not a monster in their eyes. The next morning the older men and boys mounted mules, going to the roads that led into our camp, and expunged the dark marks. Then we moved on, swinging west to finally camp near Salonica. Once we had settled into our winter camp, I had a chance to speak with Vladimir. "Why did you tell them you had taken down the vampire alone?" I asked.

"Why did you hide your dagger?"

The question confused me. "If he had seen it, he would have been wary, taken it from me before he struck."

"Yes. Ones like you, they sometimes think themselves more powerful than they are. It could have been your body being thrown in the fire instead of his if you had been foolish. And those we travel with, they fear enough real dangers in the world without making more of them to fear. Dagmar and our Ataman Yanko knows of your nature, as do I. But none other."

"They told you?" I asked, astonished. He grinned.

"I did not need for them to tell me. We see beneath the surface." Vladimir reached into his shirt, bringing out an icon. I looked at it, for the first time in my life I saw a symbol I would remember in the future. It was a cross with two crossbars, but beneath them were two circles, where his fingers would rest if it were a blade. The symbol of the Brimstone Society which would direct so much of my later life."The problem one of your kind has when you are young, is to learn to hide what you are. Some people will fear you because of your nature."

"Like those of the church in my homeland."

"Just so. Men fear what they do not understand, or do not wish to understand. Your kind are among those things. In times past, those of my order would be sent to kill you rather than speak. Until we learned more. Learned by talking rather than killing." He waved. "The one we fought was not always a monster. Not always thinking of men as food and nothing else. He became old, and separated from those around him. First by time, then by hatred of him, then finally by his own growing hatred of the living.

"When we hear of one such as he, our order sends us out to seek them, and if necessary, to slay them."

"Was it your order that tried to kill my father?"

"He is sought by us, but no, we had not known where he lived until I met you. The church sent their own assassins to kill him, causing your mother to die, and your imprisonment. He has gone to ground again, and we still seek him."

"I will find him, and I will kill him." I promised.

"Why?" He cocked his head. "He gave you life."

"My mother gave me life." I retorted. "He was a shadow that sometimes visited us, and stole what life she could have had so he could keep her. She loved mother church, and it pained her to give it up. She had a family he stole her from, one that would have denied me as well because of him." I wanted to scream it, but we had walked away from the camp, ostensibly to gather dead wood. "And when he had been discovered, he blamed, and slaughtered her like an animal, and left me to be tormented. I owe him nothing but death."

"But if you are going to challenge their kind, you need to learn."

"Learn what?"

"How to fight. How to survive when confronting them. You cannot expect them to turn their backs on you every time. They do not live to be the age of that one if they make too many stupid mistakes. You will not live to be my age if you make them." He sighed. "I trained for five years, and traveled as an associate of another brother for eight more before I was considered fully trained, and I still make mistakes. Oh you can do as they do;" he motioned back toward the camp. "Hide in your vurdon, pretend that those his kind take are sacrifices for the clan. Face them as ill trained as you are and die, or learn to fight them."

"I will learn."

He smiled, then drew one of his swords; a turkish Yatagan. He flipped it, and extended the grip to me. I grasped it, and he let go, the blade dragging my hand down. "When you can swing this, you are ready."

I lifted the sword, almost three pounds. I was able to lift it to proper en garde, but swing it? I whirled it around my head, the weight causing me to spin as well, then looked at him in satisfaction. He took it back, chuckling. "Maybe I should have said when you know how to use it, you will be ready."

We were not the only ones of the Folki, the folk. Occasionally we met others moving in other directions like the ingredients of a stew upon a fire. That first winter we camped with another group called the Ragedescu. For months we stayed in our vurdon, the children spreading out to gather food and some wood to supplement the dried dung we used for our fires. As spring came one of our wagons joined their caravan, and two of theirs joined ours. This I found was because marriages were arranged as much as ten years ahead, and the Vurdon that joined ours had boys and girls promised to some of ours, and vice versa. Ludmilla had been promised to a son of clan Illescu, and I prayed we would not meet them too soon.

And every day, Vladimir would teach me how to kill them. Vampires have two primary advantages over humans, they are far stronger, and any wound that is not mortal can be healed as I could heal from them. That is why I learned the intelligent vampire hunter would drive a stake through their hearts, then take their head, though as I told Vladimir why bother with the stake when taking the head would kill them. His laughing reply was that the stake was merely to keep them occupied with their own problems long enough for an ordinary human to get that close; something I found I had little problem with.

As spring came, we moved on, passing back into the Holy Roman Empire between Zagreb and Trieste, then into Venice. Here we had to be wary of taking animals in the forests. In most nations of Europe, the forests belonged to the nobles, and the animals were only for them to hunt. Oh a peasant could take an animal on a road, but if it fled into the woods you were not supposed to follow, even if it were mortally wounded. If one of the men at arms of a noble caught you, you could be slain out of hand. We just made sure to not be caught.

Here again my own nature helped. I could hear men on horseback at longer distances than my companions. So they began taking me along when they hunted.

Vladimir spent time not in helping us hunt, but in helping me hunt our enemies. I learned how to use every weapon man had created to that point, though I preferred the pair of Turkish swords Vladimir used, to kill those who treated my own beloved as food. The best way to think of them is like any predatory animal. They have large ranges they call their own, and will drive others from that area. The helpful ones; those that protected humans were few and far between, and as Vladimir had pointed out, almost always descended to the level of thinking of us as merely cattle to be culled.

In Upper Franconia I met a different breed of the monster. The Germanic people have the legend of the werewolf, the man who changes into a wolf to protect their people. What they actually were, I was told, is the oldest of the Vampire kind. Their line was ancient; but how they had come to be was hidden by the passage of time since they were first created.

They left us alone. They would feed on bandits back then, so we only saw them from a distance.

Those years were idyllic. Just the gentle sway of the vurdon, the smell of the forest and fields as we passed. Ludmilla was my constant companion, the sister I never had, her people the family I yearned for. It was the last true peace I knew. Events were going to plunge France into a rebellion, and the entire continent into a war in a few scant years.

In 1798 we were back in France. Ludmilla and I were of an age, fifteen years old. When Dagmar had died the winter before, I had taken her place as the one who made the medecines. I missed her gentle humor, her hands so gentle as she taught an orphan how to make them. I had moved into her vurdon, and Ludmilla would visit often.

It was August, hot as the forge of hell as they would say. We had camped near the edge of a forest, and settled in when they came. I was in the woods gathering herbs in the twilight when I heard the sound of gunfire and screams from the camp. Dropping my burden, I ran as fast as I could.

The vurdon were burning, and scattered around them were the people I loved. Vladimir had been shot, then stabbed. Tatiyana and Merakano lay together, bloody from being beaten to death. Yanko our Ataman had been pinned like an insect to a vudron with the broken lance still holding him. I searched frantically, but one was missing.

Ludmilla.

There was not much I could do for them. I piled all of the bodies into the burning vurdon, and looked at what I had left. The clothes on my back... And Vladimir's swords. Their trail was easy to follow, they had driven all of our mules ahead of them. With only one thought on my mind, I followed them. Miles flew past as I coursed as the hunter I would become, tracking them with nothing but bloodlust in my heart.

They had travelled only about five miles to set up their own camp. I stopped on the edge of the clearing. I recognized one of them, a young aristo I had noticed in the town we had passed through that morning. He had been enamored of Ludmilla, and she ignored him as she should. My first sight of him here was as he stood away from something my mind refused to see. He was doing up his pants, growling with anger. "She wasn't even worth that." He spat at the body on the ground. There was a sound, a mewling in pain as he kicked it. "She is all yours, ami."

I came from the woodline like an avenging angel. They had spent the scant seconds grabbing out weapons, and one of them laughed when he saw that I was merely a girl.

"Maybe this one will be more fun." He flourished his sword. I was in front of him, the sword in my right hand ripping up. He went into the air as if gored by a bull, his blood raining down on me as I flung him aside. I kicked the aristo in the chest, feeling his ribs break under my foot, then I turned to the other three.

One of them aimed an ornate pistol. I heard the report, saw smoke, and at the same time felt the ball rip through my lung. His look of satisfaction changed to horror as I turned, and came for him. He flung the pistol at me, and I batted it aside with my left sword, the right sweeping to send his head flying. A sword thrust into my side, and I grabbed the hand of the wielder, Then I jerked him to me, the right hand sword entering his chest then plunging out of his back.

The last one had an axe, and I dropped my last sword to catch it as it swung for me. He grunted as I stopped the swing in midair as if it had hit a wall. Then I dragged him in. My fangs sank into his neck, and he screamed in mortal terror as I drained his life away. Then he sagged into death. I drew the sword from my side, turning to the gasping aristo.

"Please-"

"How many times did my sister beg for you to leave her alone?" I snarled. The wounds in my side were healing, but I was still hungry. "How many others have you merely used in your time?" I snatched him up, and he moaned in pain from his ribs. "It doesn't matter, it ends now." Then I sucked his life away. I tossed him aside, falling to my knees beside Ludmilla.

Blood gushed from between her legs, and I wished I knew what to do about the sword one of them had dropped that had pierced her side. This was long before medicine had learned how to heal such wounds. Even if I had all of the skills of a doctor, it would have been impossible to save her, only luck would, though I bandaged her as best I could.

"Ludmilla." I whispered. I lifted her up, holding her in my arms. "Stay with me Ludmilla, please."

"Rayne." She whispered back. Her hand came up, touching my cheek. "You came."

"Of course I did."

"They killed our family."

"I know. As I killed them."

"Mama?" She looked past my shoulder. I looked back, but we were alone. "Rayne?"

"Hush, save your strength."

She cuddled against me as she had so many times in our travels. "I am so sleepy. Sing for me, please."

I sang her to sleep, holding her long after life had fled. I went through all that the men had, changing into clothes that made me look like a young boy, though any who saw my chest would know otherwise. I took their weapons, their money, and left them for the scavengers to feast on. At dawn I said goodbye to my dear sister, then I buried her there and went on.

As much as they were condemned later, the Aristo of France were no worse or better than any I had seen on our travels. But on that day, I found a hatred of their kind that would last the rest of my life. Whenever I was in France from then on I would visit the wood where she died. To honor their memory, I took their name as my own and became Rayna Belescu.


End file.
